This is just too bizarre to pass up. A Swedish couple has long opposed “the artificial construct of gender.” So, they have refused to disclose the gender of their child, who is being called Pop in the Swedish media. They are dressing Pop with dresses as well as non-dresses — and have given the child feminine and non-feminine hair styles alternatively. Only a few close relatives know the child’s true gender.
Pop’s mother insists “[w]e want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset. It’s cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.” She insists that Pop is currently “genderless.”
The parents have announced that they are going to have another genderless child so Pop will be either a brother or a sister. It appears the parents were able to overcome their own artificial constructs of gender.
I must confess that I find this all to be unmitigated bunk. As the father of four children (three boys and a girl), I have been most struck by how hard-wired gender preferences are from playing with pretend weapons to playing dress up. For an earlier column on raising boys, click here. There is nothing, in my view, artificial in this construct. Rather, there is no reason not to relish the difference between boys and girls. Since Skinner, parents have been treating their kids like experiments in social engineering rather than allow kids to develop naturally.
To be sure, society creates many negative stereotypes for children, particularly girls. Anorexia nervosa is one such outgrowth of such socially reinforced images. However, there is no such thing as a genderless child absent a physical anomaly.
With the exception of watching It’s Pat, the child will have few movie options for Friday night.
For the full story, click here.
To tell the truth; I never cared much for their meatballs either.
Well what do you expect from a country that has given us Swedish Fishes?
Gyges writes: So far my kid is responding well to my experiment on the effects on infants of exposure to large amounts of George Clinton and the Parliamentary Funkidelics
me: let’s not confuse experimentation with basic music appreciation.
Buddha writes: Can anyone think of a scenario where experimenting on one’s own children has ended well?
no. my mother gave me a Toni Home Perm the night before I started first grade. I looked like Harpo Marx. I have never forgiven her.
Buddha,
Since you don’t know my family I’ll just let you know, the kid stands no chance in the fashion department anyway.
Gyges,
Ok. That’s enough evidence from the positive column for me. I’ll mark that as a win for P Funk University. But knowing George Clinton, in all fairness, there may be effects later in life. I mean when I saw him he was wearing diapers and cowboy boots. There’s nothing wrong with that when you’re three, but I’m thinking he was closer to 53 when I saw him. It in no way harmed the music mind you, but it may be anecdotal evidence that your children may grow physically but not fashionably. Not a fatal side effect to be sure, but a possible one.
Buddha,
So far my kid is responding well to my experiment on the effects on infants of exposure to large amounts of George Clinton and the Parliamentary Funkidelics
Can anyone think of a scenario where experimenting on one’s own children has ended well?
GWLawSchoolMom said; “There are ways you think you can mold your kids and the truth is that they will be who they were meant to be. the best you can do is meet them where they are at and love them to pieces.”
Well stated!
We can only hope this “experiment” ends well.
Be careful how you deal with the humor of this subject. I tried it with one cosmological theory but was evidently unable to get the notion across cleanly (at least to one commenter).
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2009/05/phallic-sun-and-sexy-universe.html
I remember there was a time in the late 70s when there was a similar movement to free young children from gender expectations that culminated in this doll for boys. It was supposed to help boys connect to their nurturing side. It was called Buddy, I think and while I had few friends who had kids back then i do recall that there was not a single boy who had/wanted a doll for boys. One couple I knew refused to buy their son guns. he simply took carrots or his finger and pointed while shouting “bang”
they gave up and let their kid be himself.
I have a daughter who is a barn rat and prefers horses and dogs to people She will wear a dress if she absolutely has to and there are really very few times when she has to. My oldest is very very girly but never played with dolls. hated them.
this couple and their genderless child is certain to be in for some big surprises. There are ways you think you can mold your kids and the truth is that they will be who they were meant to be. the best you can do is meet them where they are at and love them to pieces.
eniobob:
you ruined my day. I was hoping she wasnt going to run in 2012, so much for republican presidential aspirations. She is just another frigging liberal populist republican.
I will be interested to see how Pop turns out in about 20 years. Get the straight jacket and hide the guns and knives.
I can see the headlines in about 2030: Pop goes Pop, Swedish mother and father first victims in serial killing spree.
Hopefully Pop is allowed to become who he/she is.
“Palin announces resignation”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24497.html
Talk about hyper-behavior,The talking heads explanations on this one is unbelievible.
Deborah,
Your story reminds me of the article that was published a few months ago that said that most of the hyper behavior that kids behave after eating sugar was due to parents’ expectations.
I was with a woman who had twins who had just started crawling. She was holding the girl and I the boy. The boy was making a mighty effort to escape my arms so he could explore those interesting electrical boxes on the floor. Of course, the girl was making the same mighty effort. Here’s the thing though. The mother described the boy’s behavior as all boy, and commented that the girl (whom the mother was having to work hard to hold still) had no such interests. When I pointed out the effort she was making to keep the girl quiet, she insisted, despite the fact that I could see the tension in her arms, that the girl was perfectly still.
I agree that what the parents in this story are doing with their child is absurd. I would point out, however, after thousands of years of “civilization,” we really have no way of knowing what is nature and what is nurture.
Gender is behavior. Save a working uterus, and the ability to create ova or sperm, there is no activity that is limited to a particular gender (and spare me the paeans to the mighty penis. It can be replicated surgically. And some women do ejaculate). It is only our social constructs, and our fear, that insist on some behaviors as male and some as female. Individuals have likes and dislikes, are physically inclined to some activities or others, but that is, or would be in a world not overcome with sexism, a personal choice, not something defined absolutely by genitalia.
I recommend Gender Shock: Exploding the Myths of Male and Female by Phyllis Burke (New York: Anchor Books, 1996).
JT: “To be sure, society creates many negative stereotypes for children, particularly girls. Anorexia nervosa is one such outgrowth of such socially reinforced images.”
True, but my mind drifts back to a time before the Safety Nazis invaded during the late 80’s and early 90’s. A time when everyone was much more laid back.
The time was 1976, and what ten/eleven year old boy didn’t have a crush on Amanda Wurlitzer?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074174/
We did this years ago in one of our movies. The lady asked if her newborn was a boy or girl, and the doctor told her it was too early to impose choices on it.
To the couple: It was just a bloody comedy movie, you bloody twits!
Wow. Talk about a fear of commitment.
Perhaps this is the best way to create our future Michael Jackson.
JT,
Skinner was an apt name to bring up in this. The experiments he did with his own children were bizarre. This couple are quite frankly idiots in the sense that they have let ideology addle their wits. My wife and I are both feminists and we have raised two girls. Without trying to impose gender limitations on them, yet there were obvious biological differentiations that took place early on. Were they cues from surrounding society, or genetically based, who knows? However, they were distinctly different in behavior and preferences from boys of their age. As parents we followed a philosophy written about by Dr. Chaim Ginott, in his seminal work “Between Parent and Child.” This basically held that it was fine to let children make their own decisions in areas that didn’t effect their health and safety.
So while being more watchful and stricter parents than average, in what we felt were the important things, they chose things like clothing, color and toys. Invariably, with no prompting they were drawn to what we might term feminine clothing and interests. As long as they knew that they should not let their sex hamper their goals in life, or control their behavior, we were content and are thrilled with the independent women they’ve become.